How HTC One E8 Stacks Up Against Samsung GALAXY S5

Now that the GALAXY S5 is no longer a hot seller (it was not since launch either), HTC has announced its Indian variant of the Chinese One M8 Ace, tagged as the One E8. Even though the letter E would stand for Economy, mind us but the One E8 is no slouch. It packs all the horsepower of the premium M8 in a plastic body and will definitely give the GALAXY S5 a run for its money.

The One E8 comes with everything that you wanted in the M8. It let’s go of that gorgeous metal body and replaces the pointless Ultra Pixel Duo camera with a standard 13 MP sensor. So in short it’s a better HTC M8 minus the metal body. The GALAXY S5 does come with a water and dust resistant IP67 certified body, which has been the subject of a lot of discussions in terms of design. So let’s not head that way.

What you get inside is the same quad-core 2.5 GHz Snapdragon 801 processor with 2 GB of RAM and even dual (nano) SIM functionality (in short you are indeed getting more). There is 16 GB of internal memory along with a micro SD card slot that can accept cards of up to 128 GB in capacity. Also included is a 2600 mAh battery to power it all, and HTC will also add a power saving mode to go with it thanks to Sense 6.0 running on top of Android KitKat. Compare that to the Samsung’s unstable Touchwiz UI, which completely underutilizes the power of the octa-core Adonis Prime2 (Quad 1.9 GHz + Quad 1.3 GHz). We think the Snapdragon 801 variant (US) of the GALAXY S5 clearly does a better job at taking care of TouchWiz’s pointless functions.

The HTC One E8 gives you a 5 inch Full HD (1920 x 1080 pixel) display with Corning’s Gorilla glass 3 protection and a normal 13 MP camera on the back with an LED flash and a selfie-oriented 5 MP sensor up front. What could have been there and is indeed missing is 4K recording (the GALAXY S5 has it), but HTC customers who haven’t heard of it will clearly not be missing out on much.

The Samsung GALAXY S5 comes with a 16 MP sensor with phase detection AF and delivers pretty quick shot to shot times. So for now the GALAYX S5 does get a few points for its camera functions and that gorgeous Super AMOLED display as well.

The Samsung GALAXY S5 does give you a heart rate monitor and the freedom to use your finger to purchase stuff via PayPal, but that would depend upon how many of us actually use those features.

Also, let’s not forget the long line up of Gear smartwatches, which have now been rendered useless in a way thanks to Samsung’s very own Android Wear-powered Gear Live.

So as you can see, HTC has built a lighter One M8, at a cheaper price with a better camera to challenge the GALAXY S5 in the premium segment.

The handset will be available starting the end of July in Electric Crimson, Polar White, Misty Gray and Maldives Blue for an online price of Rs 34,000 and a retail price of Rs 35,990.